


Candle-holder, moth, or flame?

by jailor



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Real World, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Lack of Communication, Melodrama, Mutual Pining, Requited Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25906939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jailor/pseuds/jailor
Summary: Pearl keeps making up love stories.Fake dating AU within a fake dating AU. And so on.
Relationships: Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Candle-holder, moth, or flame?

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born from a learning exercise. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, toppings, toys, background layouts, props, holidays, locals, locales, works of fiction, foods and major events are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or dreaming, or actual events is purely coincidental, in this or any other timeline.

“Everything all right?”

Rose glanced up. She’d been frowning at a crude sketch of their upcoming battle. She was barefoot, despite that the afternoon sun had cooked the ground up to searpoint. The air over her work shimmered with it. “Hi, Pearl,” she said, and waved her hand, indistict. “Of course it is! I’m planning for. You know.”

She did know. Today was to be a quiet one, then. Pearl fell to join her friend on crossed legs. Ever taken with the touch of dirt, Rose’s digits dragged a ditch across her diagrammed ziggurat and its single caravan road.

“It’s harder than it used to be,” Rose said, meaning the war. “I don’t know if I can talk Yellow out of those reinforcements.”

“Evidence of the rebellion’s successes. Our opponents are unhappy with their own foolishness,” Pearl tried. Gently.

Rose, as always, mistook her, and wilted before the drawings. She struck out an amethyst formation with her thumb, chewing her lip. “Yes. Pink Diamond’s soldiers know us. And by now, they‘ve figured out...”

That the Crystal Gems’ aim was to avoid shattering their fellow-gems at all cost. Pearl wondered when she’d started filling in for Rose like this.

She drew a pointer from her head and carefully retraced the walls Rose had broken with her touch. Feeling the back of her neck begin to cook, Pearl brandished the wooden rod between two patches of triangular symbols denoting Crystal Gem warriors. ”This was a pincer?“

Rose nodded. “To take the ramps first and get on level footing. It’s missing something, I think.”

“All right. How about this?” Pearl wiped away Rose’s notes and started inscribing her own. She marked them down: diamonds, diamonds, wedge, wedge, wedge. “Crazy Lace, Garnet, and Snowflake advance from the west. Bismuth and Larimar separate. Their party moves south...right...here.”

Rose squinted at it. “You’d have them come up the rear? Won’t we be picked off half a league away?”

Pearl tapped at the three triangles. “That’s why Garnet is with them. To attack from either side – our first strike would draw every gem to the gate. We don’t have the numbers to risk battle head-on against a fortress.”

She spared a glance at Rose, who nodded along in unblinking silence, watching Pearl. The sunspot of Rose’s gaze was too bright to linger under long. Pearl waved a curious fly away from her nose. She drew.

”With a band of fusions at our opponents’ back, their attention may stray from the road in front. I believe they’re likely to order your soldiers onto the steps to face Crazy Lace and the others. Holding high ground over the invading band of off-colors will inspire arrogance on the part of your quartzes, impairing their good judgment.” She paused. Rose was still nodding. “Bismuth and Larimar will meet less resistance scaling the southern incline - stars know _they’ll_ be underestimated - once they’ve secured a route, Biggs and I approach from the east with our team to execute the final movement. If our luck holds, your commanders fall for our ruse, and battle will be brief.“ So as to minimize casualty. The Crystal Gems might refuse to shatter on principle, but Homeworld had no such qualms, even when it meant wasting resources. Pearl wiped her neck and withdrew her tool. Rose leaned over the notes. The fly reappeared, swinging drowsy arcs around Rose’s head.

“Oh,” Rose said. “I see! It’s still a two-pronged approach. This makes more sense, though.”

Pearl dipped her chin. “I think so,” she said.

A one-armed hug enveloped Pearl’s shoulders. Soft hair brushed her neck. “Thank you, Pearl. You’re a genius.”

Pearl smirked into Rose’s sticky sideboob. “So I’ve been told.”

The embrace tightened fractionally. Pearl wanted nothing more than to reciprocate, but she’d learned of late that too bold a move on Pearl’s part would frighten the other gem away. If this was to be the extent of their private affection, Rose’s clamdigging bear hugs abandoned in Earth’s ancient history, she didn’t want to reject what remained. Any touch would do, so long as they were touching. She settled.

True, the whole army thought Pearl and Rose an item, and the two of them encouraged it in public. But that had been - they’d decided early on, strategically, of course, before all this had become so - it was more - _political_ than anything, a public union between disparate originators of an antihierarchical organization. A statement. The alliance held their flimsy double lives together, and strengthened their alibi for secret war meetings and visits back home. The chasm of their caste-status otherwise invited shock, and occasionally disgust, even among those gems accustomed to unalike couples. Even knowing Rose only as Rose. Even Pearl, sometimes, despite that she didn’t _believe_ it, felt that way, or at least was subjected to surprising thoughts of her own strangeness. Prejudice was a natural reflex for those conceived in the empire’s light. Among the Crystal Gems, one could be whatever they chose. That was the idea at least - some took to it more readily than others. People were learning to live together in peace, even with those they didn’t understand. They were making it up along the way. Her fabricated union with Rose was one of the choices that made such a thought possible.

The longer their haphazard, irregular community endured, accumulating power, the more Pearl wondered what might happen were Rose unmasked one day. The possibility was always there. Would they lay Pearl’s secret bare alongside hers? Or, all pearls back home being the same, and Pearl a being unto herself, would the others not suspect it? Would they update the story - could she pretend she’d fallen for Pink Diamond? That something about Pink _appealed_ to her? It had always been Rose.

Pearl’s nerves constructed and erased themselves in spidering waves. She held still, thinking, refraining from the whole of Rose’s touch. Then they burst. Light bloomed up Rose’s jaw, filled her lap, and the system destabilized around them. They went bright.

Pearl fell out of the flash of Rainbow still laughing with surprise, accidentally kicking the pointer strewn at their feet. It left a fan-shaped path through Pearl’s work. Rose tripped and fell to the dust beside her, tangible once more. 

Pearl brushed sweaty bangs from her forehead. “Well! It’s been a minute since we did that by mistake, hasn’t it?”

Rose had landed hard on her ass, smiling smaller than Pearl. She looked at the battle plan again as she gathered herself, and didn’t seem to hear.

“Rose?”

“Mhm? Yes. It has! How extraordinary!” Beaming, Rose worried her left thumb over her right knuckles as she said it. Her eyes were familiar, dim above an obligate grin.

Pearl came down from the rush of fusion. She crouched to retrieve her rod. “Well, back to work,” she said, curling a finger around it to wipe off the dirt.

Rose nodded. Looked to her, nodded. Looked to the broken drawing, nodded again.

* * *

“...then she stood, backside covered in mud! We hadn’t learned yet we could hold the fusion indefinitely,” Pearl recounted to a newcomer on their survey of camp, a Pearl who’d come to them by way of Bismuth’s maps.

“This is incredible,” said the Pearl. She was green. Her wide-eyed appraisal of the new statue filled Pearl’s head with song. “The riverside _teems_ with rumors of Rainbow Quartz, yes, but it’s only ever been a myth. Seeing her with my own eyes... To think, a Pearl fused to a - to her - her betrothed...”

“None of that here, now,” Pearl recited. “It’s better that way. Here we fuse for - well, whatever you like. Love, I suppose.”

Like Garnet, she thought. The Pearl squeezed her hand, gazing into the pool of tears. The colossal sculpture of Rainbow Quartz curved over them. She balanced on a toe, arms aloft, four eyes to the sky. Fountain water cascaded from the tines of her rake. 

It wasn’t true, of course, but star-crossed romance made for better recruitment propaganda than a marriage of fate and convenience.

Pearl caught sight of the hedge of Rose’s hair undergate, advancing. “Speaking of,” she said. “Best get back to my fusion.”

Then she hesitated, because of the other Pearl and her hand still in Pearl’s. She faced her companion. Pearl found the other’s eager gaze on Rose, mouth parted in surprise. 

Pearl knew the feeling well. She looked down at their linked hands again.

The other Pearl released her. “Thanks for the tour,” she said. “It was an honor to meet you.” 

“My pleasure.” Pearl smiled. “Welcome aboard.”

Then Rose drew within a bone’s-length and the Pearl’s shyness resurfaced. “I’d–” she did no good at disguising her excitement, fist sparkling with heroes’-light that twisted Pearl’s nose in discomfort –“I’d love to meet Rainbow Quartz, sometime, too.”

“You will in a moment,” Rose said, catching the tail end of their discourse. “She’ll love to meet you, too! Hail, Pearl.”

“Hail,” said Pearl, offering her arm. Rose chuckled and accepted her. Pearl tugged Rose in, hip to hip, and dipped her. They breathed familiar breath. Their ash-and-water lightgrids dissolved and rebuilt. The leader of the rebellion emerged.

Rainbow greeted the awestruck new Pearl with a careful three-finger handshake. The other’s adoration unsettled her much as it had her sincipital component. She had half a mind to tell the truth of her first night instead, blurt everything they’d built away on a moment’s urge, but the other half held fast to reason for the sake of their budding rebellion. She couldn’t tell this Pearl or anyone else they’d been lied to all along - by the one who glorified the power of truth, no less - or else she’d ruin the whole thing. 

It was enough to make her wish for a home to hide in.

Rainbow rarely yearned for her studio, or the river valley. She hadn’t lived there long. She missed the songs of the beetles and frogs, and the river’s sweet water, and the sound of Pearls’ voices, and the clicking chime of Rose’s tracer.

Rose, at that time Pink, would have been an idolmaker forever, as all diamonds were, and Pearl (a topping-off gift from Rose’s estranged mentor), of course, her dutiful wife. Under the Moon Goddess’s gaze, life was purpose, and to reject it was to choose a dry and lonely death. The pact of it was writ-in to their very forms. Neither future appealed to the pair. Rose talked to herself about it in the dawn’s light bearing hammer and chisel. She stuffed their workshop with imaginary poemsong of other options. Following an initial period of habituation, Rose plainly told Pearl she would have no interest in their marriage, but intended to keep up the pretense for peace with White Diamond; relief and insult both, at the time. Now, something else.

Pearl swept Rose’s dust and loosened her shoulders with a diligent grip. Rose’s chisels sat heavy in Pearl’s hand. Daily she cleaned and sharpened. The file left an ache on her palm. Pearl answered Rose’s rhetorical questions, listened to her stories, and ruthlessly polished the id-crystal at her middle like her life still depended on it. Rose favored her with fondness. Her features gentled with time. They achieved conversation. 

Their idol shed its first body little by little, head and collar straining against the boxlike stump of her unresolved remainder. Midway down the valley of her breast, Rose and Pearl saw their end. It was far yet, but one day they’d finish all the monuments they’d been made to erect. They’d have spent their whole lives in this room, tapping at someone else’s stone. All their stupid little stories would die with them.

“Imagine if we ran away,” Pearl said. Rose was solving the figure’s hand on a fresh practice-block, sketching up six faces. Pearl watched her fingers redden with wax. This was, by far, Pearl’s most laughable prompt.

“Ran away?”

“From the statue,” Pearl said.

“Tell me more,” said Rose. She always was one for an odd fantasy, even then. “Where do we go?”

Pearl hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Where do you want to?”

“Hmm. Where to.” The red marker carved out a thumb in profile. “I’ve always wanted to smell the ocean,” Rose said.

Describing it became their favorite game, and darkest. There was no escape. They’d been made, not born, and made with a directive. They’d be recognized for what they were. Wherever they tried to go.

Then they’d met Garnet. _Then_ they’d met Rainbow, shivering in one another’s arms in the grainy shadow of their statue’s inertia, crystal studs aglow. The first time she stood, clouds of sweet marble dust in-and-out of her mouth, Rainbow found herself eye-to-eye with Rose’s stone goddess. She was bigger than they’d ever been, just for a moment.

They did it again and again. Rainbow knew at least as much as the two of them combined, and yearned to run more than either, having only ever existed for herself. They’d been together centuries. Rainbow was both. Just one. Something new. Aloneness itched her form. There’d never been anything for her here, and having rearranged herselves she wasn’t name-bound to purpose the way Rose and Pearl had been.

So she left. They’d tried, failed, and eventually learned to sustain her. This time, Rainbow met Garnet, who congratulated her. Then Bismuth. Bismuth met Snowflake, who knew Larimar, and so on. The Crystal Gem rebellion fattened with hope. She began to carve a mirror.

* * *

“–nclusion, historically inaccurate. Alarmingly so, to be honest. But I enjoyed the rest of Holly’s novel for what it was.”

“How romantic,” sighed one of the Rubies from a mossy terrace perch. A human nodded along. 

Pearl straightened her jacket. Her feet were bare. Lush grass webbing wiped at her soles. A new custom on the roseship’s lawns. Not her favorite, though not unbearable. The worst was stepping out; inevitably Pearl’s feet collected dirt while pacing the yard, and the grainy rub of it on ship tile shivered right up and through her.

Everything else in the ship’s enclosure, Pearl found pleasant. She spent most of her time in the glade. It was worth it to have stolen this piece of Earth. Even the smells - it wasn’t the _same_ as planetside. Nothing could be. But it was not a bad approximation, as terraria went. The air was only ever as fresh as the filters, but no lifeless gem space-structure could replicate flowers or loam or fresh and rotting fruit like the real thing. The ship’s forest provided the Crystal Gems with sustainable air for breathing and a source of sustenance. All in all, a pleasant, peaceful paradise, hanging damocletically in the dark.

She caught a glimpse of Garnet‘s silhouette in the exit corridor. “Excuse me,” Pearl said to her audience. She left the sound of waterfalls behind.

“Garnet,” she said, catching up in the hall. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Yeah,” Garnet said.

They traveled the titanium tubing of the ship’s walkways. There were a couple of Amethysts making conversation under a pale pink port. Tall ones, not their Amethyst.

“To what do I owe the honor?”

“Rose asked after you.”

“Did she!” Pearl said. The pitch of her voice evaded control. “How delightful to know she’s still...at it.”

It was obvious she’d fumbled her response; Garnet’s mouth pulled at one corner. Pearl forced a smile. Ghosts of the ships’ striplights trailed through Garnet’s visor.

“She is still at it, isn’t she?”

“She’s alright,” Garnet said. “You‘re not.”

Pearl’s first instinct was to bristle, draw herself up to full pearl-height with teeth gritted. _Excuse me?_ She’d known and loved Garnet for too long to do it. Her friend was honest, not cruel, and wouldn’t question Pearl outright. She deflated.

“I’m not,” Pearl admitted.

“You haven’t been to see her.”

“Who, the love of my life?” She hadn’t. Not for some time. They could always choose to speak electronically - Rose might be watching this very conversation, for all Pearl or Garnet knew - but back when Rose had made her decision they’d decided not to, and accumulated awkwardness prevented Pearl from revisiting the notion. She knew better than to expect it of Rose.

“It’s too weird.” Another question.

She sighed and flapped her fingers for explanation. “Yes, super weird. I haven’t yet - I don’t - hmm.” 

“You avoid the Roses.”

“As do you,” Pearl was quick to point out. Garnet made a quiet sound of admission.

Of course they avoided the Roses, they and Bismuth and Amethyst. Pearl most of all. They weren’t rude about it; they could coexist perfectly fine around one or two or in small groups at choosening circle, but the Roses must have been able to tell. And for no reason at all. It wasn’t as though they were any inherently stranger to look at than the Amethysts or Jaspers. Every gem on the ship had been made in much the same manner, save the fusions, and the few human donors among their ranks had managed to grapple with meeting their mirrors. The Roses were a surprise, but not unprecedented. Although she hadn’t seen another Pearl in five hundred years, Pearl’s organic component was as clone as Bismuth or Chert. It was one thing to have known a gem to be a gem from the start, though, and quite another to meet her human friend’s secret kindergarten. Not that Rose really considered herself human any more.

They reached a fork in the hall, docking bay doors overhead. Pearl flattened her palms together. “I should visit, shouldn’t I,” she said. It had been how long? Thirty years? Twenty? Since she’d braved the little bridge? “We haven’t been out stargazing in six hundred years. Can you imagine? Me and Rose, staying indoors? All this time?”

Garnet said nothing. 

“I’ll go,” Pearl said, watching her companion for approval. When it didn’t come, she lowered her still-raised hands. “I will! I’ll go talk to her. Now. In person. Or, er, well, in stone.”

_In stone._ She didn’t shudder. Garnet left her at the door to the Roses’ chamber, with a parting pat on the head. Pearl was grateful for the reassurance. She picked her way to the bridge. She palmed the door‘s keypad. 

“Rose?” Pearl said into the empty room. A half-circle of starry screen surrounded her. The world outside their garden. Pearl approached the backup command console. The captain’s seat was a bit big, but comfortable. She turned on the lights and tuned in. The gem embedded in the arm of the chair was was wide as Pearl’s hand. Her fingerprints brushed the surface. A glow pooled in the heart of it.

She let the quiet be.

“Isn’t it marvelous?”

Like a fool Pearl turned, as though nothing had changed, like she’d find Rose standing behind her, her extended absence an act of mischief only. The way she‘d been that first week on Earth. The speaker gave off a whispering little laugh at Pearl’s ear.

“Rose,” Pearl said again, like a fracture.

“Pearl,” Rose said. “Hello. I’m so happy to hear your voice.”

The stars waited for them. Pearl’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s good to see you, too. I apologize for the wait.”

Pearl told her about Holly Blue’s romance novel.

“What?” Rose said, laughing. “Oh, no. Amethyst mentioned something like that, but I didn’t think she was serious. How bad is it?”

“Uncontrollably,” Pearl admitted, sparking another delighted giggle from Rose’s speaker. She reclined at last against the headrest. “We’re the talk of the army again. Er, the ship, that is.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

Rose had the advantage of surround sound now that Pearl was sitting back properly. ”Um...do you think we should tell them? Now that it’s over?”

It _was_ over, wasn’t it? Pearl tapped Rose’s gem idly. Wasn’t it? “Maybe we should.”

Rose was quiet. Pearl imagined she shared Pearl’s meandering thought. How costly it had been to win this scrap of peace and safety. The price Rose bore now to keep it. A secret wasn’t much compared to that. It hadn’t hurt things with Bismuth whatsoever. She rarely thought of coming clean since their ascension, until Holly’s novel.

“Pearl,” Rose said.

Pearl touched her hand to the stone. “Rose.”

* * *

The old story came to mind as they crept over the hill, crouching through underbrush. A silly imagining from her younger days of dreaming. Now Pearl was here to end things, back where this all began. One oath left to break, and they’d take Earth for the Crystal Gems for good.

Their partnership encountered a quintet of Rubies. Pearl took out two in one seasoned swipe, Bismuth’s hammer knocking back a third. Those still standing hopped into fusion before Pearl could get to them. The big gem used her new strength to charge at Bismuth. Biggs caught up while Bismuth fended off blows, Pearl striking gnatly at the Ruby fusion’s form. They made short work of her together.

“Go on ahead,” Bismuth said to Pearl once the skirmish resolved. “We’ll hold ‘em back for you.”

Pearl nodded. She left her friends behind. The route she took circled away from Biggs and Bismuth’s diversion, a strategic approach and direction. It was no time at all before she reached the palanquin.

Her final challenge waited before a backdrop of pink, billowing curtain and crystal lattice framing her magnificent quartz hair. Pink Diamond’s perfectly formed Jasper bodyguard. She was frowning in the direction of the commotion, armored head turned away from Pearl.  
Pearl had encountered this gem in battle before. She’d been made some time after Pearl left. Pearl intended to take her down without a fight, but the Jasper was much more durable than the Rubies. Pearl’s first blow from behind only sent her tripping forward until her knees hit the scrubby earth. She might have won in a fair fight, but she was very young, much greener than Pearl. Her inexperience revealed itself in a terrified frown as Pearl delivered the discorporating blow.

Pearl left the gem where it fell. It wouldn’t reform in time to halt her mission. She cast her spear to light and brushed the curtain aside. Her gem glowed. She reached up to retrieve the weapon. 

Here it was. The ghost of the awful life she’d run away from. The rebellion’s moment of truth. She stepped inside.

They were alone.

She’d last faced this particular opponent a thousand years ago. Had been imagining today’s meeting for a hundred. The shape of the palanquin’s figure rising from her throne still triggered startlement. Pearl froze, Breaking Point in hand.

“Pearl! It really is you!” Pink Diamond was standing. Pearl looked up, and up, and up. A memory tore through her gem, the moment they’d first met.

But this time Pink Diamond didn’t scowl in her face and turn aside. She greeted the sight of her assassin with baffling enthusiasm.

“It’s good to see you’re all right. I _thought_ you might be her,” Pink chattered to her shaken former servant, while Pearl gathered herself back to her mission. “The renegade Pearl. You’re incredible.”

Pearl didn’t answer. She was tempted to. This would be possibly the most important single act of her life and over the course of the revolutionary struggle she’d considered many words worth spitting in the faces of the Diamond Authority. She had her own for this gem in particular, but part of Pearl feared she’d get all the way to the end of her grievances and accidentally say “my Diamond” instead of Pink.

_“What happened to the pearl up there?” Pearl worried her ribbon in a fist. “Her head is cracked all over. Why would White Diamond do such a thing?”_

_ “ _ White _ Diamond?” Blue Diamond’s Pearl said.  _

_“You’ve got it all wrong,” said Yellow’s. “Pink did that.”_

She prepared to shatter her diamond.

For no reason at all Pink Diamond retreated. She bumped into the throne and fell back. She didn’t seem to realize her own size. She could discorporate Pearl with a blow. Pearl paced forward. She remembered Bismuth’s coaching arm, aiding Pearl’s aim at a basalt manikin.

Pink didn’t stand back up. “I’m so happy youre here,” she said, eyebrows pinched in appeasement. “I think-“

Enough of this. “Pink Diamond,” Pearl interrupted her, cutting her tongue on the consonants. “For your crimes—”

She was interrupted in turn. “Wait!” Pink Diamond said, throwing up a hand, wide-eyed at Pearl’s weapon. Then, in a turn of events Pearl had not once imagined, she began to beg for her life. She said again, “Wait, before you strike, please listen!” 

Pearl released an angry noise. She tightened the strap on her arm so her point would strike true. This was not like facing a gem on the battlefield. She had to get it over with.

“I want to help you! I agree with the rebels - the Earth should be saved - I tried to pull out the colony, but the other diamonds, they won’t listen. But you understand. We can work together. We can still save the Earth!”

Under the pleading deluge of Pink Diamond’s pathetic words, Pearl’s gem about cracked in her rage. Was there no low the empire would not sink to? This monster had the gall to shatter Pearl’s comrades, and now she’d claim she wanted to help them? Why, then, were Garnet, Biggs and Bismuth risking their lives against her troops a stone’s throw from this very palanquin?

“Why should I believe you?”

Pink Diamond looked surprised to be spoken to. “I,” she said, casting about as though for another excuse. “I guess you shouldn’t.”

The whimper of an immortal’s end. The Diamond was just stalling for time. Pearl was going to lose her nerve if she didn’t make her move now. She readied the Breaking Point. It was heavy.

The Diamond’s voice did not match her size. “But it’s the truth. I don’t want gems fighting this war. I really...love the Earth. And–” she said, shifting without moving to protect her gemstone. Pearl made the mistake of looking at her again. “And it’s because of you.”

_“Because you look just like a Quartz. You changed your shape for a day!”_

She was referring to the first Amethyst emergence. Pearl remembered sneaking out. She remembered _very_ well the expressions on Pink’s - rather, her disguise’s - face. The absolute stranger her Diamond transformed into had vanished after the visit. It was still as clear in her head as Pearl first imagined it. She’d existed for a single surreal afternoon. Pearl remembered a shower of rose petals. Organic beasts in a brook. Her first rain. Pearl herself had fallen in love with Earth that day.

Pearl didn’t lower her weapon, but she didn’t strike, either. She let out a furious breath. Pink Diamond, for all her enormous size, was looking slightly-up at her as though Pearl held all the power in this meeting. But Pink owned their world and dealt capricious wrath from afar. Pearl’s only real strength was her imagination. Here at the war’s critical juncture, under the curtains of the cage she’d escaped, weapon poised to commit the simple, inescapable crime Pearl had been painstakingly steeling herself for, imagination stayed her hand.

Gems would die either way. Her next choice would have earthshaking consequences no matter what Pearl did. But Pearl had a rational mind. She thought maybe, just maybe, they could use this.

“If you really mean what you say,” Pearl said, “and - and don’t think I won’t still shatter you at the slightest- at the- if you-“ She didn’t let her hand shake. She swallowed around an automatic honorific she hadn’t touched in centuries. “ _Pink_ Diamond, I have a proposition for you.”

* * *

“-fantastic series,” said the snooty partygoer to her left. “The very idea of a Diamond™ ruling society! And rebel Pearls on the bottom, sneaking around like Sapphires!”

The group tittered. Pearl had a drink in one hand and a woman on the other arm. 

“Don’t tell me _your_ Diamond™ came up with that,” said the Pearl to her left, hair piled atop her head. “Aren’t they not meant to think so much?”

“Her Jasper looks to be writing another.”

The heartthrob attached to her side was taller than Pearl, with thrice the breadth of her date’s tuxedoed torso, but she was Jasper in physical form only. Her mouth on Pearl’s ear had inspired the partygoer’s comment. 

“Just a few sweet nothings.” Pearl pressed a kiss to her date’s chin.

“Five minutes,” whispered Rose with Jasper’s full lips.

“It must be cutting-edge,” the fourth and final member of their group said, eyeing the facets on Pearl’s pink earring. “What model is your Diamond™?”

“Oh, this?” Pearl said, turning so the elites could get a better look. The gem on her ear winked. It wasn’t lit at the moment. “My own design, actually. A passion project.”

“Oh my.”

“What skill!”

“I have never tried to program a girlfriend with a computer,” said the first Pearl. The group giggled again. They found another subject, finally leaving Pearl’s films behind.

Under the guise of careless canoodling, Rose had been steadily feeding her the pedigree of every Pearl in attendance and a fluctuating staff count. Jasper, a well-known influencer, was familiar to upper crusts in attendance, if not widely respected. Rose had convinced the MMAtuber to act as their smokescreen for the evening somehow. It was a useful excuse for Pearl to attend a moon jubilee for once. Most Pearls would assume she came to show off a new conquest, introduce Jasper to her network. Their system-bound assumptions would provide ample cover for Rose and Pearl’s trick.

Their five minutes up, Pearl excused herself and the Pearls waved them off. She led them to the opposite wall by the steps, crossing under the enormous crystal chandelier. She pulled Rose into the shadow of a column by her belt. They made a good show of it.

They pulled apart. Rose said, voice low and bright with mischief, “Jasper will be jealous.” Pearl kissed her again.

“How’s our target?” Pearl asked her, forehead to forehead.

“Almost ready. I’m working on it,” Rose said. “Hard to multitask while doing this.”

It was well known among inner circles that the one who ruled the spire was fond of her drink and careless with her things. They’d timed their theft of the Moon Goddess for an hour with as few risks as possible. Rose concluded they’d have another half-hour to go, so she and Pearl found another small group to make small talk with in the meantime. The more people who saw them here together, the better. Jasper did not know and therefore could not be traced back to the CGs.

This pair knew of Jasper’s channel. They cooed over Rose’s borrowed biceps, fielding workout questions neither party understood a word of. Rose improvised her answers on the spot and occasionally tossed a sly wink at Pearl. She was having too much fun.

This continued until their time ran out. Someone in their circle was detailing a visit to the opera when Pearl’s date suddenly went limp against her shoulder. Pearl caught Jasper’s body and excused herself. It was a bit awkward getting the unconscious Jasper through the doors of the lavatory. Pearl stowed her limp form in a single stall and locked her in. While she was climbing out over the divider, domino on, Rose came online in Pearl’s Diamond™ stud with a deafening C#.

“Would you be less conspicuous?” Pearl said, wincing.

“Sorry, that was my torrent checker. Hey, nice mask! Anyhow, we‘ve got our routes – time to move!”

Pearl descended the spire’s curving staircase. She peeked upward at the lunar port. Locating the statue was the easy part. It took Pearl and Rose a moment to solve its security, but the automatic alarms fell to their combined skill. Pearl spared a last glance at the window far ahead. Rose had already disarmed their escape route. The chute ran the height of the spire, so that moonlight could touch the Goddess’s ritual-site in its subaquatic chamber. It was the one vulnerability the spire’s architects could not design around.

When Pearl picked up her prize, the room flooded. Rose’s reminder to fill her lungs saved her, gripping the edge of the altar for dear life while water rushed in all around. The basement chamber soon filled. Pearl released her handhold and swam for the ceiling, holding her breath. She broke surface inside the chute, gasping new air. The spire’s security measures propelled her body toward its peak.

They had a chopper on the way. Pearl only needed to make it to the rendezvous without being caught. Rose had taken care of the automatic security and timed their approach so as to avoid living guards, but Pearl was prepared to meet resistance at the very top, and she did. She fired first, ducking and rolling past the guard who’d gotten there in time, and almost made it. An iron band of heat flared against the side of her leg. Pearl cursed, losing her footing. Another bullet flew by her head. Pearl took another deep breath, held it, and leapt. 

The water around her boiled with gunfire. Rose urged her on, reminding her to focus, they were almost there. She swam underwater as long as she could. When she came up for a breath her assailants readjusted their aim, peppering the long hills of her wave. Pearl took another hit, this time tearing out a chunk of her arm. She was bleeding, she had to get out. All at once she saw the terrible jaws of a shark - 

The shark turned out to be Rose. They swam off with Pearl’s jacket between her teeth, making better time. They made it out of the guards’ range; now they had to hope their pickup arrived before the Nephrite hunter sleds. Pearl’s blood left blooming spots in the water. They reached the location. Dim until they broke the surface, Pearl heard helicopter blades overhead. Their wind kicked up a spiral of seawater mist. Amethyst dropped her basket. The first of the Nephrites raced into view. 

Rose released Pearl from her jaw and pushed her towards the copter bucket. Arm throbbing from her wound, Pearl took a moment to get a solid grip. The delay proved fatal; a Nephrite made it into range. She got Pearl’s leg, this time with a shocknet, and the red-hot grid of electric wire slicing her skin tore a shout from Pearl’s lips as Rose nosed her up into Amethyst’s lift. She smelled burning skin and fabric. A tone went off in her ear. The blood in the water multiplied. Swallowing seawater, Pearl wrapped her good arm around the cable and kicked at the aluminum. Butterflies filled her stomach. She spilled onto the floor of the cabin just as Rose woke back in her own body inside the helicopter, who was Amethyst.

“Oh Stars, Pearl,” Rose said as Pearl reflexively curled into a coughing ball around her shredded leg, letting out a constant whine of pain, fingers fumbling weakly with the thought of loosening her tie for air. Rose pulled Pearl into her lap, no mind to her blood-soaked vestments. The Diamond™ bent over her injured lover and wept...

* * *

“Sorry, nope. You’re all out of healing tears.”

Rose dripped snot on her character sheet. “Huh?”

“She’s right,” Pearl said. (“Of course I am,” said Peridot, anime glasses sticking out over the top of her three-story diorama like two giant yellow blades of Perspex grass.) “You used your last phial on my broken arm. At the Sea Shrine, remember? I told you not to do it.”

“You always tell me not to do it. Right before jumping in front of the gun again,” said Rose. She had one hand pressed to her face while she scanned the notebook in front of her, fingertips drumming her cheekbone. “You’re almost as bad as me. And now you’re going to die! Again! Oh no, oh no. Peridot? What can we do?“

“Let’s see,” their Dungeonmaster said. There was a sound of rustling from her side of the table. Rose’s phone rang in her pocket. She silenced it.

“Do I have time to make more?” Rose said. Pearl sighed.

“No. You do have fire salts from the hot spring. You could _try_ to cauterize the leg before she bleeds out.”

“Sounds painful,” Rose said.

Peridot tipped her boards down so Rose could see her face. Her eyebrows were raised. “It’s not real.”

“It’s worth a shot,” said Pearl. “Go ahead, Rose.”

Peridot directed her roll. Rose’s phone went off again. She grimaced, but didn’t reject the call a second time.

“Are you gonna pick up?” Peridot said. Rose made another face.

Pearl tapped her pen on her notebook while Rose rattled off a familiar chorus. “Hi, Mom. Hello. Yes. Lovely. After school study group. Yes I am. With Pearl. Yes, we are.”

Ugh. _White Diamond._

She was the reason for Rose and Pearl’s pretense of romance at home. They’d never be permitted time for friendship otherwise. Rose’s mother approved of Pearl in a strictly homophobic manner. White believed Rose was a young man and that love was a sickness, and saw value only in status. She was sick of catching Rose with boys and had settled for the idea of a girlfriend. Pearl’s manners and perfect grades only complemented her permissibly female-woman-girlness, never mind the essentialism and that Pearl wore the boys’ uniform, too. Over the span of two torturous twelve-course meals, White made no secret of her wish that Pearl, while unfortunate, would have influence enough to change Rose. Her hope was that Pearl‘s correct behavior and time management skills might rub off and one day make Rose into a person whose existence White would be willing to tolerate and control. In short, they were absolute strangers, enemies even. Pearl loathed the woman. 

At dinner Rose didn’t stick up for herself once in all twenty-four courses, eyes on her plate unless spoken to. Pearl had kept her mouth shut tight over her own opinion for fear Rose would bear the consequences. The one good thing about White‘s disinterest in her daughter’s personhood was that they could get away with anything they wanted under the ruse of a date, so long as Rose danced the dance right. Tonight they had one such ruse set up. A night out at the movies. The story was that she’d stay at Pearl’s after the movie got out. They weren’t going to an actual cinema, but would be watching a film elsewhere with friends for the night.

Rose’s call ended. She groaned into her character sheet, eyes still watery from the game. Pearl saw a notification pop up.

> **WHITE** : Thank you, starlight. Love you! <3

White couldn’t exactly watch them from afar, but for some reason Rose and Pearl walked out of school holding hands. Amethyst pointed it out when they got to her car at the gate. 

“Oh yeah, we are,” Rose said. 

Amethyst shrugged. “Sorry my car smells like french fries,” she said while Pearl climbed in the passenger’s seat. “Don’t worry about the junk on the floor, step all you like.” 

Pearl couldn’t even _see_ the floor. “Amethyst, how on Earth do you live like this?” she said for what might have been the hundredth time. Plastic bags and empty Red Bulls crunched wherever she put her foot down. Dirt-tracked sheets of paper rustled among the debris. “I’ll clean it myself, name the day. Is that the group assignment you said you lost?”

“Wasted effort, P. The ghost of Billy Buchanan himself breaks in to light up some homework, I’m still gonna let it go back to the way it was.”

“Where’s Garnet?” Rose asked from the back.

“Helping her parents or something. She said have fun.”

They picked up Bismuth at home. She wrapped Pearl up in her arms at the door, to Pearl’s delight.

“You guys ready to see Malevolent Cadavers II?” Amethyst said to the back. Rose and Bismuth beamed.

“Hey, Pearl,” Bismuth said, leaning forward with her hand on the seat back. “Think you could swing by this weekend? Looking for a second opinion on something I’m building.”

“Of course, Bismuth!” Pearl said, flattered by the invitation. “Sunday? I’ll come over after work.”

Amethyst parked in one of Greg’s spaces. Approximately. He greeted them in the lot, saying he’d catch up after closing. The four of them climbed the hill of Beach City’s cliff. They entered the lighthouse with practiced efficiency: Pearl levered a screen out with a bone folder and dragged open the window as far as it would go. Amethyst climbed through to unlock the door. 

Their stuff was all there when they reached the top of the lighthouse; the city owned the property, but the lighthouse ran itself, so rarely did anyone came by. Everybody picked out a seat on the couch while Pearl propped Rose’s laptop up on the table.

The movie was a comedy of carnage. Pearl settled in next to Rose. She thought about taking her hand again. She didn’t.

They reached the beheading, which inspired a wince in Bismuth and made Amethyst cheer. Rose was on her phone. She typed rapidly, elbow brushing Pearl’s back.

> **WHITE** : When you are prepared for an adult discussion about your actions, give me a call.

Pearl lowered her voice. “Everything all right?”

> **WHITE** : I want speak to pearl’s parents
> 
> **WHITE** : Now
> 
> **PINK** : I’m sorry 
> 
> **PINK** : Her grandmother can’t call she went to bed at 9.

Rose laughed, tossed her head, rolled her eyes. Pearl smelled flowers. “Just White being White. It’s nothing.”

Pearl could see the messages on Rose’s screen, though, tipping over slack fingers.

> **WHITE** : Again with the lies Pink?
> 
> **WHITE** : You just love to tell yourself that your mother is a manipulative witch who does not love you. We all are very concerned for your wellbeing. This sneaky behavior has to end.
> 
> **PINK** : Please can we talk about this tomorrow
> 
> **WHITE** : It always had to be on your terms does it? Do you know how much I have cried at night wondering if you will be ok in your future? Do you think your mental illnesses are so easy on the rest of us? Have some perspective.
> 
> **WHITE** : I only want to help.
> 
> **WHITE** : Know I love you Pink and you will always be my Starlight. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. Please talk to me. I love you.

“Here, take a selfie with me.” Rose pressed herself to Pearl’s side. The scent of her hair was on everything now. Pearl swallowed around her thoughts. She returned the gesture, tugging Rose close with an arm around her waist. They stared into their own pleasant smiles onscreen.

> **WHITE** : Call me now
> 
> **WHITE** : Fine I see how it is. Have fun when you get an illegal accident and need the emergency room when there’s no one to call because you’ve pushed away your only family who care.
> 
> **WHITE** : Don’t respond anymore unless it’s with proof you’re at the movies like you say. I don’t want to hear it.
> 
> **WHITE** : You just love to twist the knife don’t you?

Rose clicked the shutter, and Pearl watched both fall.

> **PINK** : See, Mom? Safe and together! Just like always! See you tomorrow!

Rose shut the thing off before either of them caught White’s response. She tossed her phone on the rug, where it landed face-up, reflecting the carnage onscreen. “Now she’s got all the proof she wants. Problem solved.”

Pearl squeezed her hand where it rested still at Rose’s hip, pinned between her not-girlfriend’s back and the scrubby surface of the lighthouse couch.

“Thank you,” Rose said, eyes on the movie, near silent. Or maybe she only thought it. Pearl read the words on Rose’s lips. She imagined extracting them with her own. She swallowed again and fixed her attention on the screen. Her arm decided to stay put where it was.

Return of the Army of Malevolent Cadavers II continued. A city was burning. Pearl watched without seeing, sinking into Rose. She blinked a few times. The sound went out of focus. Pearl nodded off.

She woke spitting pink hair. Her arm was numb to the shoulder.

“Hey,” Bismuth was touching her shoulder. “Rise and shine.”

“Rose?” Pearl sat up. “Bismuth.” Bismuth laughed. Pearl wiped the corner of her mouth. “What time is it?”

“Mhghhm my phone’s off,” replied a half-asleep Rose automatically. She leaned over Pearl to reach for it, squashing her head between Rose and couch. Pearl squawked. She smelled morning breath.

“Rats, I gotta get to work,” Amethyst said on her other side.

“Me, too,” said Pearl.

“Eleven thirty.” Rose‘s phone had a wall of missed calls and messages under the clock face. Pearl retrieved her own from the wall charger and found just one from her grandmother, the shopping list for tonight’s dinner. Pearl stuck her wallet down her back pocket.

They took another selfie together before parting.

“See you after work?” Pearl said, trying not to get her hopes up. They’d tried and failed to arrange this particular outing for weeks now.

Rose just nodded brightly, cheerful as ever. “I can’t wait!”

Work was fine. Pearl’s students took to the email workshop with far greater enthusiasm than they’d shown the phones. After Pearl got out, she waited by the water tower for her friend to arrive. 

Rose was late, coming down the hill just as the sun fell. They made their way past the docks and the Crab Shack, hugging the cliffside. This was the dangerous part; the path that led to the bay cave was narrow and broken at points, slick with sea spray. Pearl placed her steps carefully. The cave went deeper into the cliffside, but Rose and Pearl stayed in the widest part of the chamber near the entrance. They lined up their sneakers against the cave wall and hung all four feet over the edge, staring at the moon on the water.

“Um, Pearl,” Rose said, staring at her feet.

Pearl smelled salt. “What is it?”

It took her a moment, but Rose got the words out. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this with me.”

She didn’t have to ask what Rose meant. “But I want to.”

“Really?”

She sounded small.

Rose made a face like swallowing stones, and gathered her courage again. “At first I didn’t realize how serious a favor it was to ask of you. I didn’t think - it made sense and it was like, convenient - I just didn’t think.”

Convenient. Alright. “I see.”

“And that wasn’t fair to you,” said Rose. “I mean, I’m grateful. Thank you for - for everything, really. But I feel like I’ve sort of trapped you in something that’s mine to deal with. And I never really asked how you felt about it because I was so afraid to know the truth.”

Pearl looked away from the moonlight. “Rose, if I may be honest...” she began.

Her friend perked up. “Yes?” 

Pearl looked her in the eye. “I dont like the secrets. I _understand_ why you have to, but, well.” She was reluctant to say it, although her actions by now said as much. Fishing for the words made her empathize with Rose’s choice to do this. “I can’t stand your mother.”

Rose looks at her with startlement like she has no idea what Pearl’s talking about. “What?” She scoffs, eyes wary. “Me too.” 

“I hate how she berates you. I don’t want to be complicit in her abuse.” Rose flinched at the word. “It disgusts me that we can’t just be friends without all this theatre. And,” Pearl continues, suddenly nervous she’s said too much, “White’s dinners were a nightmare. Let’s not do another if we can help it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

The sight of Rose wilting brought on Pearl’s second wind. “But I love when _we’re_ together. When your mother first hired me to tutor you, I wasn’t a fan,” she said, reaching to explain herself before Rose took it all the wrong way. “You‘re a terrible student, Rose. But I like, um, getting up to no good. Before I started spending time with you, I didn’t _like_ spending time at school. I’ve always been a top student, you know.” 

Rose was sad-eyed but smiling. “I know, Pearl.”

“I thought I’d keep my head down, follow my plan, and one day it would be over. The way I’m meant to.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Rose shifted, crossing her feet.

She didn’t, though. “But it’s changed, don’t you see? I don’t have to feel that way anymore! Because - because I met you.” 

Rose looked up at her. The moon set her hair aglow. Her mouth was open slightly.

Pearl kept going, afraid to lose the momentum of whatever had brought them here. “So, Rose, I do think we should call this off. I mean, once we’ve come up with another solution to White. But....I don’t intend to change anything else. All I want is for me to be me and you to be you. We can just keep doing what we’ve done. Movie night and karaoke and Greg’s lawless house shows. That’s what I want to do.”

The silence that followed squashed Pearl like a bug. She’d never felt so stupid. But the words were out there now, and she’d have to face their consequences. The lapping of waves below filled the cave.

Rose clenched her jaw and said, “I need to tell you something,” just as Pearl began, “There’s something else I- 

“You go first.”

“No, you.”

They glared at one another, then fell into cringing laughter. 

“We’re so silly,” Rose said, shaking her head. Yes. They were. Pearl rolled her eyes. Rose grinned at her.

She felt better knowing Rose was nervous, too. 

“You go first,” Rose said.

Pearl gathered herself. “I must preface that my intent is not to make you uncomfortable, or interfere with our friendship. This is something we can, it doesn’t have to change,”

Rose scooted closer. They were touching again. “Pearl. It’s ok. Whatever it is, I’m not going anywhere.”

“That is. Er. Oh. I don’t know. You’re wonderful. And, what I said before, it’s all true. I hate to pretend, and I love to be together.”

There was a hand on her shoulder. Oh, no. Rose was laughing at her now. “Pearl, it’s fine. Just say it.”

”Shhhh! I am trying to! If you’re amenable - I’d like to actually d- Rose, may I take you out for dinner sometime? Actual dinner, no White allowed? If that’s all right with you?”

”What, like a date?”

”Like a date,” Pearl confirmed, palate sandpaper.

Rose burst into tears.

Smooth. What a nightmare she’d made of this night. This was awkward. “Forget it. Sorry. We don’t have to talk about-” 

Pearl lost the end of her sentence in an ardent embrace. She was afraid to reciprocate without knowing more. Her hand jerked.

“Are you all right?” 

“Pearl,” Rose sobbed, Pearl’s face smashed up against hers.

“-th you, I didn’t want to assume because you’re so cool and smart and good at everything and completely out of my league-“

“Me? _Your_ league? Rose, your mother owns the town.” 

Rose left a damp streak on the bridge of Pearl’s nose while pulling away to frown at her. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s - I suppose you’re right. It’s not worth as much as she thinks. And you, you’re nothing like her. You’re - beautiful and kind, and....you can be patient with people, even the idiots.”

Rose cried harder. Pearl patted her on the waist. It was all she could reach with her arms pinned in Rose’s tight hug.

“Rose,” Pearl said, turning red. “You’re crying on my shirt.”

Her companion let go, still sniffling.

Pearl tried her hand at an encouraging nod. “So...so what were you about to say, then?”

Rose looked at her with wet eyes. Her nose was pink. “Pearl,” she said, in that dead-serious stare unique to Rose. “May I kiss you?”

“Is that all?” Pearl said. “We do it all the t-mmfgn.”

She understood then what Rose really meant. She kissed her back. They had one more conversation. They made dinner plans. Their only witness, the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first SU fic! Thank you for reading!


End file.
